the damage done
TOXIC FEMINISM
by
DAVID SOLWAY
______________________________
David
Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist (Random Walks)
and author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and
Identity and Hear, O Israel! (Mantua Books). His
editorials appear regularly in PJ
Media. His monograph, Global Warning: The Trials of
an Unsettled Science (Freedom Press Canada) was launched
at the National Archives in Ottawa in September, 2012. His debut
album, Blood
Guitar, is now available, as is his latest
book, Reflections
on Music, Poetry and Politics.
The damage that radical feminism has done to our education system
is incalculable. Yet the movement continues to grow exponentially,
and gender studies faculties, which promote female empowerment
at the expense of what is called "toxic masculinity,"
continue to multiply.
Feminism
has patently skewed the syllabus in the direction of gender
asymmetry. In the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion,
women have progressively come to dominate campus life regardless
of aptitude and competency. Hiring protocols are female-friendly,
as are faculty postings and grant opportunities. Qualified male
candidates need to make alternative arrangements. (As Heather
MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute muses, in the prevailing
climate, Einstein might have trouble getting hired for a professorship.)
Male students, already in declining numbers, are under threat
of allegations of sexual assault or harassment, ad hoc
tribunals, and arbitrary expulsion. McGill University anthropology
professor emeritus Philip Carl Salzman warns parents in a comprehensive
essay for Minding the Campus, "Your sons will learn they
should 'step aside' to give more space and power to females."
Unfortunately,
too many careers have been built on gender studies and feminist
theory to allow surrender. Leftist government bureaucrats, university
administrators, "diversity and inclusion" officers,
and faculty across the entire academic landscape are dependent
on preserving perhaps the greatest scam in the systemic apparatus
we call education. Investing in a false theory or inequitable
practice never prevented its adherents, whose reputations and
livelihoods are at stake, from surrendering their perquisites.
Rather, educrats and their cohorts will double down and increase
their efforts to further their agenda. They will persist in
finding ways to evade the most far-sighted and ethically determined
efforts to redress the parietal imbalance by refusing to implement
new directives from enlightened government agencies.
One
way is to pursue legal action against elected administrations
bent on reform, as in the U.S., where women's groups are suing
secretary of education Betsy DeVos for rescinding Obama's guidelines
on how to manage Title IX investigations regarding (male) sexual
assault. These organizations are intent on defending a regime
predicated on unsubstantiated allegations rather than due process.
Similarly, in the Canadian province of Ontario, the left-feminist
teacher union is suing the recently installed Conservative government
for attempting to repeal the current sex ed curriculum. That
this curriculum introduces very young students to sexual practices
for which they are emotionally unprepared is of no account to
these insurrectionary preceptors. Rather, the perpetuation of
what is nothing more than a pedagogical sinkhole is their purpose,
as is the case with Title IX proponents.
Another
way to stymie the remedial enterprise is to stack the deck with
ever more fellow-traveling faculty personnel, thus relying on
critical mass to fortify a doctrinaire position. Professor Art
Hill, chair of the Department of Food Science at the University
of Guelph, points out: "One thing that concerns me is hiring
policies. Our provost at the University of Guelph hosted a session
on Academic Freedom . . . mostly strategizing on how to limit
expression of 'undesirable' views without making martyrs. There
was little evidence of sincere respect for differing ideologies.
His last slide advised that Universities can limit expression
of unacceptable views via selective faculty recruitment . .
. especially in the social sciences and humanities." Recruitment
proceeds "according to ideology." (Personal communication.)
Not
content with having ruined the humanities beyond repair, the
radical sorority and its male apostles are insinuating their
campaign into the STEM disciplines, now being steadily infected
by the gender cathexis. There is no doubt that the study and
practice of science as we know it will be drastically weakened.
Toni Airaksinen at PJ Media cites a recent instance of this
monetized ideological swindle, which is in fact representative:
"The University of Tennessee-Knoxville will spend more
than $700,000 in federal funds over the next four years to get
more women into STEM, despite their proposed intervention having
zero record of success." Some of the bogus issues being
addressed involve, as to be expected, the so-called "culture
of implicit bias," which simply does not exist –
except insofar as it privileges women – and that strange
eidolon known as women's "emotional labor." One does
not know whether to blush or laugh.
Airaksinen
pulled her punches when she should have gone for KO. "Perhaps
this program might be helpful for women in STEM, and ultimately,
scientific discovery at large," she suggests, perhaps ironically,
though "considering that the NSF has poured millions of
taxpayer funds into similar projects and hasn't been able to
document any results, it seems unlikely." It is not merely
unlikely, but entirely implausible. Just ask Sir Tim Hunt, Larry
Summers, and Matt Taylor. Science is a discipline with intrinsic
standards of replication and objectivity that cannot be adulterated
by peripheral concerns entailing social projects, cultural preoccupations,
or the fashions of the day while remaining science.
"Emotional
labor" has nothing to do with science. Gender has nothing
to do with science. Stringent analysis, top-tier math, controlled
experiment, endless testing, and honest commitment to the task
of advancing human knowledge and exploring the universe are
what science is about. If a man can do it, good. If a woman
can do it, good. If an immigrant from Mars of indeterminate
sex can do it, also good. But if hiring and staffing depend
on extraneous factors, mediocrity is the inevitable consequence.
Standards must apply across the board.
The
same is true, if in various ways, of any profession. Canvass
the best candidates, the most capable, the most dedicated to
the field, and the most willing to work punishing hours. These
are, or should be, the invariable criteria of selection and
preferment. Such is undeniably the case – or should be
– when it comes to the schools and colleges. Wise administrators,
learned and effective teachers, and real subjects are –
or should be – the essentials that underpin true education.
Feminist
dogma is not one of these essentials. Departments of Gender
Studies – as well as the myriad other faux "identity
studies" programs like queer studies, race theory, critical
theory, fat studies, sexuality studies, whiteness studies, ad
vomitatum – do not constitute real subjects; they
are centers of radical indoctrination or specimens of academic
frivolity. Bruce Bawer's definitive examination of our vaudeville
education network, The Victims' Revolution, is an adversarial
classic and should be consulted by skeptics. Grouped under the
rubric of "social justice," identity studies programs
largely explain why our universities are well on the way to
becoming third-world institutions. Feminism is the mother of
the "social justice" obsession that is devastating
the culture and destroying education.
As
I have argued before, the academy cannot be reformed, despite
a decent government's best intentions. It must be abolished
or gradually phased out and replaced by schools and universities
and online delivery programs founded on the traditional mandate
of moral accountability, exacting scholarship, discipline-specific
authority, open debate, and responsible instruction. A redoubtable
task, no doubt, but one that is absolutely necessary. Feminism
must have no part in it. With its reliance on false assumptions,
phony statistics, affective resentment, and glib verbosity,
feminism is the most potent carcinogen attacking both the body
social and the health of the education system. It is toxic.
It is talk-sick. It needs to go.
